Two months in...

Hey All -

I have now been in Pejivalle for two months. Much has happened and I feel more integrated into the community every day. People are starting to recognize me as someone who lives here and is not like most of the other gringos they are used to seeing here for only a day or just a few hours. I am spending most of my time attending meetings of different community groups. Each of these groups has their specific meeting time once a week or once every two weeks. Although I am not necessarily working on projects with each of these groups I think it is important to be at their meetings to get to know how the group functions and to get to know the members better. It is common that the members of these groups are the most important and influential people in town, therefore it is a good idea that I get to know them! The groups I am currently meeting with in Pejivalle are the Camara de Turismo (the Tourism Board), Grupo Ecologico (the Ecological Group), and Coopejivalle (the town cooperative).

Currently, the Camara de Turismo is working on a project that is being partially financed by the Programa de Pequeno Donaciones. They are being given a total of $5,200.00 in three different installments. They have had the first portion of the money for several months and they have to present a report at the end of this month stating what they have spent the money on, what progress they have made, what they plan to do next, in order to receive the next chunk of money. A big problem with the organizations in Pejivalle is a lack of motivation and procrastination. Proof of this is that as of the beginning of November they had only bought two flash drives and were spending their meetings talking around what they had to do but not really accomplishing anything. My instinct was to yell at them to get moving, “You guys have the money! All you have to do is go out there and freaking spend it!” But this is not a good idea because I haven’t established a solid enough relationship with the group to start saying things like this without being viewed as someone who is coming in to try to take over rather than work with the group. Thankfully, around mid month they realized on their own that they needed to get a move on and have started focusing more on the project and have spend more of the money on things. I honestly don’t know if they will have completed enough and have a good enough plan to receive the second and third parts of the grant. We shall see…

Grupo Ecologico is a group that is dedicated to educating the community on ways to protect the environment here in Pejivalle. The community is part of a program called Bandera Azul Ecologico, a program that awards communities based on the level of cleanliness in the water and other areas in respect to the environment in general. The program is divided into schools, beach communities, regular communities (like pejivalle), and protected areas. The program uses a three-star system to designate each level of cleanliness. Right now the community of Pejivalle has two stars and the high school has the maximum of three stars. Grupo Ecologico works to give workshops to the community members about recycling, trash pickup, prevention of soil erosion, the effects of agrochemicals, etc. Right now the group is preparing to start a community wide recycling program. Starting in January the Municipality will be coming around house to house collecting recyclables. The group is collaborating with the high school to plan workshops to teach people how to recycle and to educate them about how this recycle program will work. The high school is participating because since it is an Ambientalista high school and the kids receive environmental education all of them know how to recycle they will be able to lead these workshops along with members of the Grupo Ecologico. The Camara de Turismo is also participating because one of the requirements of their project is that they help with educating the people here on the subject of recycling. So far the main thing I am doing is trying to coordinate times and places for meetings that work for all of these groups. Grupo Ecologico is also planning a BINGO to raise funds for the group. We have secured the location, date, and time. Now we are working on getting donations for prizes to award the winners. Each member of the group is going to bring some kind of food to sell as well (I am bringing chocolate chip cookies).

I am also meeting with the town Cooperative but I am sorry, I don’t have the energy to write a description of what they do right now as I am still in the process of trying to figure that out.

One rather strange issue that I am dealing with is that these groups are not giving me much to do and I kind of feel like there is a lack of trust on their behalf. I am being given tasks that are small and often people feel the need to either tell me how to do them in great detail or insist on helping me do them. I was not expecting to deal with things like this as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I was anticipating that people I work with depend on me to help them get things done and that they would need me to guide them. But right now it feels like the opposite, like people here know what they are doing and think I dont. How strange, right? For example, I was asked to help out with activities that were going on all day one saturday to raise money for a kid. I am generally all up for helping out in whatever ways are usefull but as long as I feel like I am doing something worthwhile. I went to the activities and asked how I could help and was told to go around with a can and approach people for donations (fuuuuun). Then after this I didnt have anything to do so I hung around and watched the events taking place. I approached a community member who was in charge of the activities and told them I was going to go home. They responded by pleading that I stay and that they really needed my help with a BINGO that was going to start. Of course, I stayed thinking oh great! they want more help! I was assigned to the task of collecting the money and handing out BINGO cards as people entered. This was fine, except they thought that i needed help doing this so they sent over a guy who was basically just in the way because it was crowded and the job was only enough work for one person. I guess I am just frustrated because I have an education but the people I am working with are treating me like I dont know hardly anything. I am going to chalk this up to being new and that people dont know me well. But this is definitely something I am going to be working on. I wanted to get this out there so that hopefully in 3 months things will have changed and I will be able to look back on this entry and say, ¨look how silly you were emily, you just needed to be patient with people.¨


And now, I have received strict orders from my mom to document a dream (more like nightmare) that I had just about every night for the first month and a half I was here. The setting is a pitch-black room. I am sitting in on a meeting with a community group. I have introduced myself as best I can with what Spanish I know and have attempted to explain what Peace Corps is although I am sure I have completely butchered it. Now the conversation has moved on and the group members are talking. They are talking so fast I cannot understand what they are saying, if they are talking to me, if they are making statements, or if they are asking questions. In the Spanish language I have found that it is hard to tell if someone is asking a question or just making a statement because they don’t really vary their tone of voice like English speakers do. Everything comes out as a statement. Anyway, this dream is terrible because all of the sudden there are all of these awkward silences and I have this feeling that I need to respond or say something to break the silence and to prove that I am a worthy group member but I have no idea what they were talking about, where the individual voices are coming from, or if they were even talking to me because I cant see anyone because the room is pitch black. So I to fill the silence I end up making this “mmhmm” sound or just saying “si” or something stupid. Then eventually the group continues talking again, obviously growing uncomfortable with my awkwardness which makes me more nervous. Then the dream repeats as all of the sudden there is a silence and damn it I wasn’t paying attention to what they were saying because I couldn’t understand anything and now I feel obligated to say something to prove I’m alive at least. So again I make the “mmhmm” sound or say “siiiiii” in a pensive manner to try to make it seem like I know whats going on. This dream repeats and repeats until I finally realize I’m dreaming and then I stop. Just about every morning for my first month and a half my brothers, who sleep in the next room over, would comment that I was talking in my sleep and making a sound like “mmmmhmmmm” and “siiiiii.” Finally this dream has stopped. I think its because my Spanish is better and I can pretty much understand what people are talking about and can respond somewhat more intelligently if prompted. I must say this is the first re-occurring dream that I have ever had in my life and its probably the only one I am able to retell completely. Usually I remember that I had a dream about something but I cannot describe it.

Hope all is well! Much love.

Emily